Ex-SAP Lab Chief Andy Dey Predictably Joins Infosys

Former SAP Labs India head Anirban (Andy) Dey has joined Infosys as the global head of its software products platform, EdgeVerve. The move was not much surprising as when Dey left SAP last year, buzz was he would be joining Infosys. Dey’s exit from SAP comes less than a week after the announcement of former SAP CTO and Board member Vishal Sikka was appointed Infosys’ new CEO.

Dey confirmed about his joining the company on Twitter as well as LinkedIn. After his exit from SAP, industry watchers believed that Sikka may want to bring to Infosys a strong talent pool from outside, especially those with whom he was comfortable working with. However, some have discounted the possibility of his joining the country’s second largest IT services firm and speculated he would set up his own venture.

Dey took over as the head of SAP Labs India in January 2013. He succeeded V R Ferose who took a global role at SAP. Dey was with SAP since 2008 and has over 15 years of expertise in technology and applications development.

Dey was reportedly one of the Indians, like Sikka, who led the innovation and operational efficiencies at SAP Labs. He led the team that built a critical component of HANA called the modeller. “It is the face of HANA, and was designed and developed in Bangalore. The modeller is used to interact with the database, programme it and produce models that help derive analytics,” he said in an interview with Business Today.

He is also credited with driving SAP Hana-based platforms such as SAP Auction Analytics and SAP Game Analytics. That work is said to have brought Dey and Sikka very close. Sikka was the main architect and advocate of the Hana platform.

Dey replaces Sanjay Purohit, who was heading EdgeVerve, a wholly owned subsidiary of Infosys. Purohit now heads the consulting business of Infosys, according to sources.

Since Sikka took over as Infosys CEO in August, a total of 10 SAP executives have joined the software company. Sikka has reportedly hired three more of his former colleagues who joined the company in March. Besides Dey, Infosys hires Kaustav Mitra, formerly global vice-president of SAP Startup Focus, has joined as vice-president, innovation ecosystems at Infosys. Lastly, Gordon Muehl, CTO of security and senior vice-president at SAP, has also joined Sikka’s team last month.

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